Current Lenses

A young photo-friend just asked about what current Canon lenses I like and what I’m up to… here’s what I said:

Since I switched to Canon, I bought exactly the lens kit I wanted and love them all. A 24-70 F4 came with one body and it’s a great ‘event’ lens. My favorite lens is the 70-200 F2.8 IS EDIF… beautiful lens, flexible for theatre (no need to switch lenses), just stunningly sharp with beautiful soft backgrounds at 2.8. There’s a new version out January 2010 that’s supposed to be even better.

I bought a 16-35 F2.8 that is fantastic as well. It has some cool wide ’style’ to it, is great in low light. And it’s fairly flat (as much as possible) at the edges, so it’s very usable for groups, etc.

Since I bought it all exactly what I needed, there’s nothing to sell off yet. Eventually I might sell my first gen 5D, which is full frame, but I keep it as a backup in my car. I bought the Canon T2i for the HD video and as a light backup second body, and for video and for megapixels, it’s terrific… but it’s built so light, you couldn’t use it as a main body.

Much of what I’ve been learning over the last 2 years has been flexible, small lighting. Check out Strobist and the book ‘Hot Shoe Diaries‘ for that… and good luck!

Picking a GPS for Geocaching

You don’t have to go nuts with spending… but I know that car GPS’s don’t really work, since you are 99% off the road for Geocaching.

You can use the Groundspeak Geocaching app for the iPhone, but we cache in such bad weather/spots that I’d hate to have to carry the phone out in the open for hours and risk it… and I don’t know that the iPhone GPS is as fast/exact as a dedicated GPS for getting within a few fee of something… it could be a cheap start though, if you have the iPhone anyway. Oh, and it’s a great app for going paperless and has tons of great features. Well worth the money. And there’s a Free Version to play around with first.
We have a Garmin eTrex Venture HC… I dunno, around $125? And it’s perfect. You do want one that’ll hook USB to your computer, so you don’t have to manually enter the coordinates.
DON’T get a Magellan. The one I bought had issues, and they refused to repair or replace it… said it was discontinued, even though I just bought it. Go to Geocaching.com and see what people are saying they like.
There’s even a very simple/inexpensive one that comes pre loaded with caches… mostly to get kids started. But I like the multi-use of a full GPS.

On Photo Students Being Taken Seriously

I got an e-mail from a high school photo student I met recently. He was asking how to be taken seriously enough to make money from his good sports photos of his friends.

A few basic business things do help… acting like a business person, being professional, being on time, always delivering on time, tracking orders and payments very well, and guaranteeing that they’ll love your photos or they don’t have to pay. But it’s tricky. And I find that today, people are fine with an average snapshot for free (taken on their cell phone!), compared to an amazing photo for $10… You just have to find the niche’ where people appreciate great shots and you can give them good value.

He was a great kid and I love to see that kind of initiative and entrepreneurship (and he took nice photos to boot!). I wish him well.

Here was our conversation:

i’m the photographer

of monroe high school i dont know if you remember me.

You bet… I enjoyed looking at your photos, and it was impressive that you’ve already had photos published!

i can take any picture but i need more expirience in this jobbecause in this work is easier to find problems that take a picture.I’m taking pictures in the volleyball games in the school and i sell the photos to save money to buy the camera I want
but the people do not take me seriously and do not like pay me

Yes, that’s a big issue. Even when I sold photos to friends, they sometimes thought they should just get them all for free. Tough issue. I totally believe in being nice and giving lots away, but then you spend lots of money on the camera and lots of time taking the photos.
Maybe what you could do is offer to the parents something like this… for $20 (or whatever you think is fair & they’ll pay) you’ll take lots of photos at a few games, really focusing on their child and then you’ll just give them the photos on CD. That way they totally know up front there is a cost, but that you really are working for them, not just taking a lucky snapshot and trying to sell them something… If you have 3 or 4 parents do that per season, it could be worthwhile.

Or maybe even go further and say you’ll get one nice portrait of them in their game clothes after a game, and that’s part of the package… maybe throw in a print or something. I don’t know… but the idea is… what can you do to make it so much more than the parent can do themselves and it’s worth some money to them.
And if you are making money this way, make sure they are getting tons more than they expect, and if you just can’t get good photos of their kid… don’t charge them and give them what you take for free. Maybe that can be your guarantee.
Maybe go to the first game of the season and give away all of those shots, or share them on Facebook in smaller sizes… that’s good free advertising, and people can see you take good photos, and aren’t *just* out for the money, you are willing to share.
So that’s one idea. After you get enough money, you can use online labs like Smugmug.com and sell prints for more than they cost you… but there’s usually a yearly cost to do that. Also check out Printroom.com… see if either of them have smaller yearly plans for free.
Or maybe you could try this… print all the nice shots from a few games… post them for free on facebook, Flickr, etc and tell your friends they can grab them for free… but that you’ll have prints in school for $1 per 4×6 (or whatever)… or you print them up ahead of time, and just have all the 4×6’s. That’s what I did. Had them all with me… sold them pretty cheap per print. At the end of the season you can give the extras to the coach or yearbook.

and I do not like that because nobody in that school can take picture as
which I take. i think – I do not think myself better than anyone thats whay

I need advice about working in this business.

thanks    

It’s good you know you do a good job. Look at lots of photos and what good photographers do and keep improving. But deep inside, knowing you are good will help a lot in tough times.
I’ll post this question to my blog (without your name of course) so other students can learn as well.

Keep it up and shout with any more questions…

BW Laser Printer?

Q: A friend asked if I had any thoughts on getting a good BW laser printer to use with his Macs.

A: Ken Said

I liked my old HP… I did have issues with it sucking in speciality stuff properly over time (like envelopes going in double, etc). But it was a nice unit. At this point, you really might want to just go for a color laser and choose BW option (we have a ‘BW cheaper’ preset made on all our Macs… to save the money. But the color units are so common and reasonable in price. I LOVE the output quality of my OKI C5500 and I compared lots of units and really liked it better than the color HPs in the same price range for graphic arts stuff. BUT their Mac support is dismal (I’m actually the one who had to come up with a Kludge for using it without drivers under Leopard… and I told them what to recommend!) And they still don’t have a decent, easy driver out (since Tiger!)… So my next unit will be a Xerox Phaser I think, although it’ll double my per page cost. I do use generic toner in the OKI and that’s gone pretty well. After 2 years, I have needed to replace drums which wasn’t cheap… If you only want BW, do check out the HPs. I was always buying the smallest ones meant for small business/home office… not the ‘consumer’ units… so maybe that’s part of the issue as well, I usually was paying a fair amount for my model and then did like the output. I think they all come with Ethernet at that level too.

Hope that helps some.

More on this topic HERE

Tips for a Young Photographer:Camera Settings, etc

I work with some ‘young’ photographers… some young in years, some just new to professional shooting. Here are some tips I just sent to someone to improve her skill set and to really get great shots at an event she is covering for me next week.

Shutter Speeds:

Try to get in close and experiment with shutter speeds: Faster to cut the effects of ugly florescent bleeding into your nice flash color (say 1/200th or 1/250th of a second)… to dragging the shutter a bit if they are in dimmer light with nice light behind them (say 1/30 or 1/15th of a second). That would be the Shutter Priority on your D200.

Ummm… check the display dude… better shoot a few more frames!

• Lots of Frames:
If you can do the playground, just shoot multiple frames of everything… A series for me is never less than 3 frames, and usually 6-8 frames… sometimes 20 frames as I watch a situation develop… looking for the right moment.

• Control the situation:
Don’t be shy to ask kids to look at you and smile for some.

And look for reflectors in the shot! Well, this is from a series of 32 images… I’ll find a good one.

• Camera Feedback:
Chimp and check your exposure and focus…

• Pre-check and Test:
Pre-check all of your settings to be sure they are decent… Test it once you get the camera out to be prepared. Test it at home the day before an event to be sure you instantly know where all of the buttons are, how each setting affects the image, etc.

• Bracket:
Take a few shots with different settings in the series. Use the feedback you get from chimping (checking the display… we look like chimps doing it…) to tweak the flash power or exposure… I’m always changing my + – settings on flash or ambient exposure (when not doing flash). To really nail the exposure.

Even with the color manually set to Florescent… it’s too Magenta. I’d tweak this manually to add some Green and maybe Yellow.

• Color:
Always set your color manually… I use cloudy for the average outside shot (sunny is too blue still). And Flash for flash shots. Auto color is awful on every camera I’ve ever touched or read about. Even with Flash, I think it must vary the Flash color to take into account a bit of the ambient color around the subject… giving poor color on the subject… Yuck.

For bonus points:
when you are in a consistent setting, tweak the color even more with your menus. Often I’m adding or subtracting a bit of yellow and in florescent lighting, I’m always set on the florescent tube setting, then adjusting it more or less Magenta… and sometimes more or less warm/Yellow.

• Image Quality Settings:
Shoot Jpeg Fine files. A normal file for me is like 1.2—1.8 megs.

• ISO Speed/Flash:
ISO around 400-500 is usually good for indoor flash, maybe down to 200 if you are in close and/or are trying to have your flash overpower some strong ambient light like tons of florescent or sodium vapor.

• Depth of Field:
Keep an eye on your focus and depth of field (how far in front and back of the subject is in focus). Focus on the nearest subject, or part of the subject you want in focus… Depth of Field is narrower in front of the subject, so if you back focus, you are pretty much assured of soft front subjects… if you focus on the front subjects (like in a group with a front and back row), you have a fair amount of focus *behind* the front subject to hold focus on the back row. And even if they are a tad soft, the perception is of a fairly sharp image with the front subjects tack sharp.

• Fast Fast Fast:
The only thing is to practice doing this over and over (and at home, at parties, on simple shoots… doing much more than is needed) to be able to in 10 seconds, get 3 fast shots, with chimping on one of them and tweaking the exposure, angle of the flash, watching the background, etc… Fast fast fast, so people don’t mind your standing there.

• Batteries:
Invest in a few sets of NiMH batteries around 2700-2900 miliamps. I’ve been happy with a set of Duracells I got recently, but that power level is cutting edge, so it’s been hit or miss on what brand is good. These batteries are so good now that I bagged using a Quantum Turbo pack (and my turbo was frying a flash every year from the power/overly fast recycle time). You should easily get 2-3 shots off with almost instant recycle with good batteries. And I rarely need more than 1 or 2 sets in a day of heavy shooting.

• Cats:
Get a cat. They are warm and make you feel better after goofing up all of the above

Unless you disturb their repose
(Cat photos by Colin Huth)

I Heart Canon

So one of the reasons I finally bailed on Nikon cameras was that their pitiful Pro Services. It was more like the ‘Professionally ignoring shooters’ arm of the Nikon business.

I had one repair into their ‘pro expedited service’ and after a few weeks I finally called, (after being on hold for a while) and they shuffled through some paperwork, found my lens repair and said they’d get on it… I’ve said before, one lens repair (on a $1500 lens), when looked at by the Non-NPS repair shop.. they said ‘Who repaired this lens last??!) It was so poorly done by Nikon Pro.

This Monday I sent our a flash repair to Canon , and today (Wednesday) I got the repair approval via e-mail (easy peasy) and since I pre-approved, it’s in process now. Should be done within 3 days.

This year Canon has switched to a tiered pro service setup, but I got the same great service on my last repair of a body under their old system. I do pay now $100/year for my (middle level) of service. There’s a free level below, and at my level, I get 2 free body cleanings a year, free return shipping and 30% off repairs… so it’ll pay for itself. The big thing for me is that Canon seems to be treating us pros like we need to be treated to keep shooting. And frankly, my Canon equipment has been holding up better than my Nikon equipment ever did. Ah, the joys of not having to re-glue my camera grips back onto a $5000 camera… bliss.

I’m not a famous national guy, but how many of them are there to all of us local working pros that need repairs done right and fast, and want to be taken care of just like we take care of our clients?

Oh, and they send fun things with the membership… a new, really nice Canon Pro CPS camera strap, etc. And the silly thing I love is the preprinted labels for repairs… nice job CPS.